Renee Sonnenberg watches her rock as second Cary-Anne McTaggart, left, and lead Rona Pasika get ready to sweep during a Roar of the Rings Canadian Olympic trials curling game at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg on Dec. 2, 2013. The winners of Roar Of The Rings will represent Canada at the Sochi Olympics and the trials run from Dec 1-8.

A year ago, Renee Sonnenberg could do no wrong in the Alberta Scotties Tournament of Hearts women’s curling championship.

This time around, the 42-year-old school teacher from Grande Prairie and her rink with Edmonton’s Lawnie MacDonald and Rona Pasika, plus Milk River’s Cary-Anne McTaggart, is battling to stay alive in the 12-team, triple-knockout competition.

Sonnenberg won two sudden-death games in the C Event on Friday, trouncing provincial championship novice Kelly Erickson of the Saville Centre 8-1 in only six ends and defeating Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge 7-5 at the Sylvan Lake Multiplex.

Meanwhile, 2012 Canadian champion Heather Nedohin and her Saville Centre rink of Beth Iskiw, Jessica Mair and Laine Peters became the second team to qualify for the opening round of the playoffs at 6:30 p.m. Saturday when they stole the winning point in the 10th end for the second straight game to edge Crystal Webster of Calgary 5-4 in the B Event final.

Nedohin, who will play Saville Centre clubmate Val Sweeting and her unbeaten rink of Joanne Courtney, Dana Ferguson and Rachelle Pidherny in the Page Playoff A-B game (with the winner advancing directly to Sunday’s final at 1:30 p.m.), also stole one coming home to edge Tiffany Steuber of Spruce Grove 6-5 in the B semifinals earlier Friday.

Sonnenberg meets Webster in one of two C Event finals at 1 p.m. Saturday; it’s Steuber versus 2010 Olympic silver medallist Cheryl Bernard in the other one. The two winning teams will advance to the Page Playoff 3-4 game at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

Bernard easily won her C Event semifinal 10-3 in six ends over Tiffany Game of the Crestwood Curling Club while Steuber eliminated Delia DeJong of Grande Prairie 9-7.

Chana Martineau of the Saville Centre and Deanne Nichol of Grande Prairie were bounced from the competition earlier Friday.

Sonnenberg, who is 3-2 in this championship, won her first four games to reach the 2013 provincial final, where one mis-called shot cost her a chance to win her third Alberta women’s title but first one since 2001.

“We played phenomenal,” Sonnenberg recalled. “Even the final, we didn’t play that bad. We were just very much out of our comfort zone playing Kristie (Moore). Obviously, part of that is the history between the teams and her having been our player.”

Sonnenberg explained that Moore “was angry with us” after forming a team with Sonnenberg, MacDonald and Pasika and then getting replaced after a couple of seasons when she got pregnant last year.

“There’s one shot I want back in that game,” Sonnenberg said. “It’s unfortunate. It cost us a trip to nationals.

“But I don’t know if we would have won that if we would have addressed the issues we had as a team and I don’t know if we would have made the (Canadian Olympic curling) trials this year. It’s simply because when you lose something like that, you walk away disappointed, but there’s also learning there. So we took a look at what we needed to do better as a team and we took a lot of steps to be better as a team, so I feel we’re stronger going in this year (at provincials) than we were last year.”

The shot Sonnenberg would like to have had a do-over was when she played too aggressively trying to force Moore to score one point while holding a two-point lead in the sixth end. Instead of just hitting Moore’s rock in the back of the house, which probably would have resulted in a blank end, she tried to make sure she stayed in the house to sit two after the hit and ended up taking out own rock in the four-foot to leave Moore an easy draw for two to tie the game.

“We had to take a step back and look at game management,” Sonnenberg said.

The team also improved its communication when brushing rocks, after having overswept Sonnenberg’s last shot of the game.

“Our drawing has improved a ton because of that,” Sonnenberg said.

Sonnenberg won five of her six games at the Olympic pre-trials to become the first team to qualify for the trials in December at Winnipeg, where her rink won its first game before losing five in a row and finishing up with a win that prevented Sweeting from qualifying for the playoffs.

“Actually, we should have beat (Stefanie) Lawton and Sherry Middaugh drew the button against us and there’s a couple of shots here or there I want back, but overall, it was a wonderful experience,” Sonnenberg said about the trials. “To play in front of that many people is really cool and the curling was great. I mean, if you put a rock a foot in the wrong spot, you’re just like, ‘Please don’t make this,’ and teams did.”

Sonnenberg’s team hadn’t played since the trials until their first game in the provincial championship on Wednesday, although Renee got five games under her belt as a second while sparing in a Peace Curling Association competition last weekend.

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the “X” in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.